Global Gender Justice and The Feminization of Responsibility

Abstract

This paper morally evaluates the phenomenon Sylvia Chant calls "the feminization of responsibility," wherein women's unrecognized labor subsidizes international development while men retain or increase their power over women. I argue that development policies that feminize responsibility are incompatible with justice in two ways. First, such policies involve Northerners extracting unpaid labor from women in the global South. Northerners are obligated to provide development assistance, but they are transferring the labor of providing it onto women in the global South and expecting them to do it for free. Second, development policies that feminize responsibility increase women's exposure to sexist domination. These two problems are present irrespective of whether policies that feminize responsibility improve women's basic well-being.